A Magic: The Gathering card is a small, dense data sheet. From the top down, the major parts are the card name (title bar), the mana cost (top-right), the illustration, the type line, the expansion symbol with its rarity color, the text box (abilities, reminder text, and flavor text), the power/toughness or loyalty box, and the bottom line carrying the collector number, artist credit, and legal text. Each region is fixed by the frame so players can read any card the same way.
This guide walks every region in order, explains exactly what it holds, and notes which fields you fill in when you build a card in PipGlyph.
Card name
The title bar runs across the top of the card and holds the card name — the card's unique identifier. Two cards with the same name are considered the same card for deck-building and rules purposes, which is why the name is the single most load-bearing string on the sheet. On older frames the name sits on a tinted nameplate; modern frames float it over a holofoil bar. Length matters in practice: a long name forces the type setter to shrink it, and the same is true in a custom editor, so concise names sit best.
Mana cost
In the top-right of the title bar sits the mana cost — the resource you pay to cast the card. It is written as a run of pips: generic numbers first, then colored symbols, for example or . Lands have no mana cost (you play them for free), and some cards are cast by other means, so an empty cost area is normal rather than a bug.
The cost area is also where a card's color is read at a glance. The colored pips here, plus any colored pips in the text box, define the card's color identity. For the full vocabulary — generic, colored, hybrid, twobrid, phyrexian, snow, and the utility symbols — see the complete guide to mana symbols.
Illustration
Below the title bar is the art window, the framed illustration. On the original 1993 through 2003 frames the art sits in a bordered box with clear margins; the 2014 "M15" frame and the full-art and borderless treatments push the illustration toward or past the card's edge. The art is the card's identity to most players, but mechanically it carries no rules — it's presentation only. In PipGlyph, the frame era you choose sets the shape of the art window. Every frame on offer today keeps the art inside that window; edge-to-edge borderless frames aren't available yet.
Type line
The type line runs in a bar directly under the art and is the card's grammatical core: it tells the rules engine what the card is. It reads left to right as supertypes, then card types, then a long dash, then subtypes — for example "Legendary Creature — Goblin Wizard" or "Basic Land — Mountain."
Supertypes
Supertypes are optional modifiers that sit in front of the card type. The common ones are Legendary (you may control only one with a given name), Basic (the five basic lands), Snow (a permanent type that some costs care about), and the rare World. A card can have a supertype or none.
Card types
The card type is the mandatory middle of the line and determines the rules that govern the card. The permanent types are Creature, Artifact, Enchantment, Land, Planeswalker, and Battle; the two spell types that resolve and leave are Instant and Sorcery. A card can carry more than one type, such as "Artifact Creature" or "Enchantment Creature."
Subtypes
After the dash come subtypes, which are flavor-and-mechanics tags scoped to the card type. Creature subtypes are creature types like Goblin, Wizard, or Elf Druid; Land subtypes name the basic land types (Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest) and nonbasic types like Gate; Artifact subtypes include Equipment and Vehicle; Enchantment subtypes include Aura and Saga. Instants and sorceries can share spell subtypes such as Arcane or Adventure. Subtypes are the hook a lot of tribal and synergy text reaches for, so they carry real weight despite living after the dash.
Expansion symbol and rarity
To the right of the type line sits the expansion symbol (also called the set symbol), a small glyph identifying the set the card was printed in. Since the Exodus set in 1998, its color encodes rarity: black for common, silver for uncommon, gold for rare, and an orange-red for mythic rare. The symbol itself is purely informational and has no effect on gameplay. For how rarity is assigned and what it signals about a card, see MTG rarity explained.
Text box
The text box fills the lower-middle of the card and holds everything the card does, plus its voice.
Abilities are the rules text. They come in a few shapes: keyword abilities are single words or short phrases standing in for a longer rule (Flying, Trample, Lifelink); triggered abilities start with "When," "Whenever," or "At" and fire on an event; activated abilities are written as a cost, then a colon, then an effect, such as ": Add "; and static abilities simply state a continuous truth ("Other Goblins you control get +1/+1").
Reminder text is the italic text in parentheses that restates what a keyword means. It's a courtesy for newer players and carries no extra rules — the keyword alone is the rule. Designers drop reminder text on well-known keywords to save space and keep it on obscure ones.
Flavor text is the italic, non-rules prose — a quote or scene — usually set off below the abilities by a thin divider. It never affects play; it sets tone. For the conventions that make abilities and reminder text read like the printed game, see how to write MTG oracle text.
Power, toughness, and loyalty
The bottom-right corner is a status box whose contents depend on the card type.
Creatures show a power/toughness box: two numbers separated by a slash, like 2/3, where the first is the damage the creature deals and the second is how much damage destroys it. Some cards use * for a value defined by an ability. Vehicles also use a power/toughness box, since they become creatures when crewed.
Planeswalkers show a single loyalty number in the bottom-right instead — the counters the planeswalker enters with. Loyalty abilities in the text box spend or add to that number. Battles carry a similar defense number. Most other card types leave this corner empty.
The bottom line
The thin strip across the very bottom of the card carries its production data, set in small type. From left to right it typically includes the collector number (the card's position in the set, like 137/280), the artist credit ("Illus. [name]"), and the legal line — the copyright notice and rules-set code. None of this affects gameplay; it's provenance and legal text. On a custom card the legal line is where you should make clear the card is unofficial and fan-made rather than a Wizards of the Coast product.
Parts at a glance
| Part | Location | What it holds | Affects play? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Card name | Title bar (top) | Unique identifier | Identity only |
| Mana cost | Top-right | Cost to cast, as pips | Yes |
| Illustration | Below title | Artwork | No |
| Type line | Under the art | Supertype · type · subtype | Yes |
| Expansion symbol | Right of type line | Set + rarity color | No |
| Text box | Lower middle | Abilities, reminder, flavor | Abilities only |
| Power/toughness | Bottom-right | Creature combat stats | Yes |
| Loyalty | Bottom-right | Planeswalker counters | Yes |
| Bottom line | Card foot | Collector no., artist, legal | No |
Filling it in within PipGlyph
When you build a card in PipGlyph's card maker, these regions map to the fields you edit: a name field, a click-built mana cost, an art upload, a type-line builder for supertype, type, and subtype, a rarity picker that sets the set-symbol color, a rules-text box, a flavor-text box, and the power/toughness or loyalty stat. The collector and legal lines render automatically.
The one thing to keep in mind is that the frame style changes the layout — a retro frame gives you a bordered art box and a tinted text box, while a modern frame stretches the art and restyles the title bar — so the same fields land in slightly different places depending on the era you pick. Start a card at /create, choose a frame, and the live preview shows every region update as you type.
FAQ
What are the main parts of a Magic card?
Top to bottom: the card name in the title bar, the mana cost in the top-right, the illustration, the type line, the expansion (set) symbol with its rarity color, the text box holding abilities and flavor text, the power/toughness or loyalty box in the bottom-right, and the bottom line with the collector number, artist credit, and legal text.
What is the dash in the type line for?
The dash separates card types from subtypes. Everything before it is supertypes and card types (the rules category, like "Legendary Creature"); everything after it is subtypes (flavor-and-mechanics tags, like "Goblin Wizard"). If a card has no subtypes, there's no dash at all.
What's the difference between reminder text and flavor text?
Both are italic, but reminder text appears in parentheses and restates an ability's rules in plain language, while flavor text is standalone prose — a quote or scene — usually set off by a divider. Neither changes how the card plays; reminder text just explains the rules that are already there.
Why do some cards have no mana cost or no power/toughness?
Lands have no mana cost because you play them for free, and any non-creature card leaves the power/toughness box empty. Planeswalkers replace that box with a loyalty number, and battles use a defense number — the bottom-right corner simply shows whichever stat the card type needs, or nothing.